


Let Her Love You

by bliffle



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Implied Polydiamonds, was going to be a saucy but nah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bliffle/pseuds/bliffle
Summary: White Diamond wants Yellow Diamond and Pink Diamond to go on a mission together. No crew, just each other and their Pearls. But Yellow hates Pink. Or so she thinks...





	Let Her Love You

“You want me to _mind_ her?”

They stood, Yellow and White, in a polished, ivory room. A large white throne, unoccupied, leaned against the pristine, sparkling wall. Beneath it, the creamy marble stone glistened.

White Diamond was looking out one of the enormous windows, a hand carelessly shifting back the silver curtain. Yellow Diamond wasn’t close enough to see, but she knew White looked down upon a bustling and colorful scene, filled with intricate buildings and statues and winding walkways and shimmering portals.

With a flick of White’s hand, Homeworld was shut away. The room darkened.

“I want you to accompany her on a mission,” White corrected, her voice low.

“I haven’t the time—“

“Yellow.”

White’s voice was barely above a whisper but still Yellow felt her words catch in her throat. She swallowed and bit her tongue.

“Pink is only a few hundred years old. I think she can learn a lot from your guidance.” White paused. “She looks up to you.”

Yellow couldn’t help but scoff, but coughed into silence when White turned to look at her.

Her silver eyes seemed to pierce the air. “It is true Yellow. She thinks highly of you. You and Blue.”

“Then why not ask Blue to go with her?”

“Blue is still colonizing her last planet. I don’t want to distract her from that. This mission might take a while.”

“How long?”

White shook her head. “My sapphires tell me it could take anywhere from a few months to a few years.”

“That’s not very long.”

“Perhaps not to you and I,” White said, her eyes sparkling, “but to a budding new colony and a budding new Diamond, it might as well be eons.”

Yellow chewed her inner cheek. “This is Blue’s doing, isn’t it?”

White raised a thin eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“It was Blue’s idea, wasn’t it? She wants Pink and I to be close, for me to _like_ her, but I don’t. I hate her.”

Before Yellow could blink White had closed the distance between them. White’s face was inches from Yellow’s, and although her face remained blank her eyes burned white fire.

“You do not hate her,” she said firmly. She grabbed Yellow’s face with one clawed hand. “She is your fellow Diamond. You love her. It is your duty to love and respect her. Understood?”

Yellow nodded. She felt White’s hand relax and cup her cheek lovingly.

“If you find yourself unwilling to relent to your natural feelings than a journey alone with Pink might help you. She is quite charming if you let her be. Quite easy to fall in love with.”

“Are you in love with her?”

“Of course.”

She kissed Yellow on the forehead. Yellow all but melted into it.

“I’ve fallen for all of you.”

*

Yellow sat on her haunches and glowered at the large, glowing orb in front of her. The engine had stalled, and there were no technicians aboard the ship, so she had to come down here herself and see what was wrong. A Diamond, bent over, _fixing_ an _engine_ …

Yellow inhaled sharply and pinched the bridge of her nose. This is why she wanted Peridots. This is why she insisted that White Diamond allow her to bring a proper crew. This is why she didn’t just want her, the Pearls, and—

A warm flash of light suddenly erupted. With a small gasp, Yellow lost her balance and landed on one of her legs in an undignified slump. Her eyes darted back to the orb, thinking it was the cause of the disturbance. But all around her—the walls, the floor, the ceiling—were drenched in that blinding, blooming color.

“PINK!”

Yellow snapped back up and, without bothering to straighten her coattails, dashed back upstairs to the control room. Yellow hardly registered the two Pearls beside the stairs as she stomped her way to the one of the two chairs. The unoccupied one remained stubbornly yellow, but the other…

Yellow spun it around quickly with one hand, revealing her frizzy-haired fellow with a wide grin.

“Guess who just learned how to change the color of the ship?”

“Pink—“ Yellow began.

“Yes!” Pink said, twirling in the chair, her arms spread wide. “Look around Yellow, isn’t it _marvelous_!”

Yellow clenched her hands into fists.

“No! This is _my_ ship. It is supposed to remain yellow!”

“It’s been yellow for a month!” Pink said, turning to face Yellow again. “Staring at the same color is so _boring_.”

Yellow scowled. She reached around Pink to the control panel in front of her, but Pink caught her arm.

“Now Yellow,” she said lightly, “I’ve come up with a compromise—“

“There will be no compromises!” Yellow said, trying to wrestle her arm out of Pink’s grip.

“We will change the color periodically, so there will be a different color every month! That way it won’t get too dull. It’s dull enough around here as it is, don’t you think? I was thinking we could make it blue next time—“

Yellow tore her arm away and slammed her hand, open-palmed, on the control panel. The blinding, yellow light scorched through the ship, swallowing the soft rosy glow as it went. Pink blinked up at her, her eyes adjusting to the sudden change in color, as Yellow bent down until her face was inches from Pink’s.

“This ship will remain the color I choose,” Yellow said in a dangerous whisper. She saw the Pearls flinch in her peripheral vision but the Diamond before her simply stared back.

“If it means so much to you Yellow,” Pink said finally.

Yellow’s eyes narrowed. “I still have to fix the engine.” She straightened up and made her way back down stairs, acutely aware of Pink watching her go down.

Yellow felt like punching a wall, but instead bent down again and started opening up the engine’s panel. Angry tears formed in her eyes, and she had to furiously wipe them away to see the problem.

An unplugged wire.

She almost shouted her name again before she stopped herself. _It wasn’t necessarily Pink,_ she thought to herself, _it could have been one of the Pearls, messing about. It could have come loose on its own even._ But Yellow couldn’t shake the feeling that Pink was teasing her, sniggering behind a hand just above her, sharing a gleeful look with Pearls…

 _Just let her love you Yellow_ , she heard Blue Diamond say.

Yellow slammed the panel shut.

*

A gentle knocking. Yellow almost didn’t hear it.

She had holed herself in her personal quarters for almost two weeks, occasionally sending her Pearl out to deliver messages to the other Diamond. _The ship is slightly off course, turn it 15 degrees to the right. Check the engine for optimal power distribution. Don’t sing so loudly. Stop laughing. You’re not supposed to be having fun._

She was sure that Pink sent her back with a retort, she could hear her giggle or snort or sigh from the control room. But Pearl didn’t dare repeat whatever Pink whispered to her.

 _Or maybe whatever she said she didn’t wanted me to hear_ , Yellow thought bitterly, her hands furiously typing away each time her Pearl slunk back in, her mouth pressed in a thin line, as if to keep the secret words from spilling out.

Sometimes she sent her Pearl out just because she was tired of catching her in the corner of her eye, standing completely still and trying not to sniff too loudly. Her Pearl’s utter obedience exhausted her. _Have fun,_ she thought to herself when she waved her off for the tenth time, _have fun with my sister gem and her ridiculous Pearl._

She wanted to relish her moments alone, and she almost did. But the loneliness suffocated her and she always called her Pearl back after a few hours.

When the knocking started, her Pearl was not in the room. She had sent her out for looking miserably bored. It must be her, perhaps with a message from Pink this time.

“Pearl?” Yellow called, trying to sound careless.

“Yellow.”

Pink. Yellow’s breath caught in her throat.

“May I come in?”

Yellow opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, but Pink interrupted her unknowingly. “You’re not still mad at me, are you? I’m sorry about the color…I didn’t realize you would get so upset.”

Yellow slowly stood up. _This is ridiculous,_ she thought, _even for you_. _Just forgive her and be done with it._

A softer voice told her it wasn’t anger that kept her in her quarters.

Yellow made her way toward the door.

“Blue told me to give you time to calm down,” Pink said. Yellow halted in her tracks. A familiar burn began seething in her chest.

_This is anger._

“You’ve been talking to Blue about me?” Yellow hissed.

Yellow heard a small gasp from the other side of the door. It sounded as if Pink was pressed against it.

“Can I please come in?” she said eventually, desperately.

“If I wanted to see you,” Yellow said evenly, despite the anger burning hotter, “I would have come out by now.”

Silence.                                                                                                            

“If you want to talk Yellow, I’ll be in my room,” Pink said quietly. Yellow heard the tears in her voice. Pink cried just as easily as she laughed. “I’ll leave it unlocked.”

Yellow felt something else mix in with the anger. It was a slow ghost of a feeling, just as hot as the anger but not as blinding. Like a glow.

She heard Pink’s receding footsteps, then a shutting door.

Yellow let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding.

*

Yellow went to sit back in her chair. She meant to get back to writing reports but she stared at her screen numbly instead.

 _I’ll be in my room,_ Pink’s voice sang in the silence.

Her foot tapped impatiently.

_I’ll leave it unlocked._

Yellow’s legs tensed as if she were about to get up, but she relaxed them back in the chair, a little ashamed. She owed Pink nothing. If she wanted to pout in her room, then it was no business of Yellow’s. She wanted it this way anyway. Now she didn’t have to deal with Pink and her stupid shenanigans.

It was just what she wanted. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair.

A sudden blue glow filled her screen. A humming note. She felt herself relax.

Blue.

She tapped the screen and her fellow Diamond’s face appeared.

“Yellow,” she said warningly. Her eyebrows were knitted together.

“Blue,” Yellow replied. “Why are you calling? It’s only been a month and a half.”

“It’s Pink,” Blue said. Yellow felt the ice in her voice as if it was pricking her skin. “She called me in tears.”

“I see.”

“Why are you so cruel?”

Yellow exhaled sharply through her nose. She glared at Blue.

“Please, Blue. Spare me your dramatics.”

“First you yelled at her for changing the ship’s color, like you’re some sort of immature Peridot—“

“—she’s the one who’s immature—“

“—then you refuse to see her. _Honestly_. Why are you being like this? Do you want her to be frightened of you?”

“Please,” Yellow scoffed, “she’s a Diamond. She shouldn’t be frightened of anyone.”

“She is young.”

“She needs discipline. You coddle her—“

“—I do not _coddle_ —“

“—Yes you do, you _and_ White, and now she thinks she can get away with anything, including sabotaging the engine—“

“Sabotaging the engine?”

Blue raised an eyebrow carefully. Yellow cursed herself.

“I believe…she might have…unplugged a wire in the engine room. To divert my attention.”

Blue rolled her eyes. Yellow glowered.

“If that’s true that sounds like a juvenile prank, befitting of a Diamond her age. That’s hardly sabotage.”

 “It stalled the engine,” Yellow fumed, “and I never would have done such things when I was her age.”

“Please,” Blue said. It was her turn to scoff, “I have half a mind to call White Diamond and have her set you straight. Do you see how ridiculous you’re being? You’re going to make this mission as miserable as you possibly can…for what? To make a point? To make Pink beg to go home? Why are you doing this? Why?”

Yellow couldn’t answer. Her throat felt swollen. She eyed the door and imagined Pink sobbing into one of her soft rosy pillows, her Pearl perhaps comforting her with a delicate hand.

Or maybe she was alone.

Yellow hated crying, especially in front of Blue, but even so she felt a hot tear trickle down her cheek.

“This is stupid,” she choked, rubbing her eye.

“It is _stupid_ ,” Blue said, firmly. “It’s stupid I have to mediate from light-years away. Go apologize please. You’ll feel better.”

“Fine,” Yellow said, reaching to turn Blue off.

“Wait. Another thing.”

Yellow let her hand hang in the air. “What?”

“She does love you,” Blue said, “would you just let her?”

“You’ve told me this before.”

“And I’m telling you again. You’re so _stubborn_ Yellow. I don’t know why you’ve decided you hate Pink. It would be much easier if you just let yourself love her too.”

Yellow clicked her off. It was rude, and she knew Blue wouldn’t let her forget about it next time they talked, but she needed the silence.

*

Yellow finally emerged hours later, when she was sure she ran out of things to report. Her eyes swept the control room. The yellow and pink chairs sitting next to each other, turned inward as if conversing, were empty. Nothing was here, not even the Pearls.

She took a hesitant step toward the pink door when she heard a stifled giggle come from below her.

She paused, foot in midair. She thought she imagined it, until she heard another, louder this time, and someone shushing.

It sounded like Pink. Pink and someone else. A Pearl.

A new fury she hadn’t expected burned within her. A hot noise rose in her head, a manic buzzing, piercing, screaming. She shut her eyes and felt a warm wetness leak out.

 _Why am I so mad?_ A lone voice, low and shaking, asked. It drowned in the deafening roar that was her head.

As much as it burned, she was glad she was angry. This hot rage was familiar, etching in her face like rushing water in drought-dry streams. No, it was like lava. Bubbling, burning, red-hot lava. Whatever she was feeling before was flushed away, whatever feeling that was, the one she could not face. This anger hurt but it hurt good.

She flew down the stairs.

There was a clatter as she made it to the bottom. She panted heavily, not from exhaustion but from exhilaration, daring her eyes to find that mop of ruffled pink hair. She found it, in the glow of the yellow orb, in the far corner of the room.

But it was small. And silhouetted against it was a familiar point of yellow hair.

“Pearls?”

Her voice echoed in the gently humming room. The Pearls leaned against each other, her own trembling, the other holding her steady.

At last Pink’s Pearl met Yellow’s eyes.

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” she said defiantly.

“Oh?” Yellow said, and her voice was a purr, oozing like poison. Her anger tapered into a soft hum.

_It is not Pink._

“That’s right!” Pink’s Pearl said, as if Yellow needed her to answer.

_Pink is not here._

“So, what is it, exactly, that you are doing?”

_Pink is still in her room._

“W-we…” her own Pearl began. Her voice left her as she gazed up at her Diamond, seeing the wisps of anger still left over on her face.

“We’re in love!” Pink’s Pearl shouted.

If Yellow blinked she would have missed it. In a soft glow of white, where once stood two Pearls stood one.

Yellow couldn’t help it. She had to laugh. It bounced off the walls, and the fused Pearl flinched as if it were a real.

“You don’t know what love is,” she breathed.

In a flash they were gone. Yellow could hardly believe it came from her. The anger had snaked its way back in and released itself in a bolt of lightning.

The Pearls’ gems clinked together, like they were kissing, then fell away from each other and on the floor. Yellow stared at them, small and fragile and reflecting the ship’s yellow glow, when she heard a door slam open.

“What was that?” Pink shouted from above.

Yellow did not answer. She heard Pink run down the steps.

Yellow did not move, even when she felt Pink close by her. She did not look at her, but she felt the other Diamond’s gaze settle on the two iridescent gems on the floor.

Pink’s gaze burned her. Something told her to turn her face but she didn’t.

“Why?”

Yellow faced her then. It did not sound like Pink. It sounded like a Diamond, like a matriarch of the galaxy, like a ruler with incomprehensible power.

“They fused,” Yellow said dully. “They should be shattered.”

Pink didn’t blink. “Are you going to shatter them?”

Yellow wondered if Pink would let her. But she shook her head.

Pink hastily raised her hand and the Pearls zoomed toward her. She incased them in two, bright pink bubbles.

“You’re fond of your Pearl,” Pink stated, keeping her gaze on them.

Yellow nodded. “And you?”

“Of course.”

Yellow vaguely remembered a conversation that happened in the past. It seemed so long ago.

_She is quite charming if you let her be._

Pink’s eyes were half lidded. She looked exhausted. Her eyes were slightly red from crying.

_Quite easy to fall in love with._

“I owe you an apology,” Yellow said.

Pink gave her a side-ways glance. Her eyes said _go on_.

“I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you about the light. It was stupid, really.”

“Wasn’t it?” Pink said. Her eyes darted to the orb. “To be honest, I was just trying to get your attention.”

_…quite charming._

“Really?” Yellow drawled.

“You were ignoring me,” she said softly. She hugged her elbows and looked away.

_…easy to fall in love with._

“You annoy me,” Yellow said simply.

Pink tuned back to her quickly. “Is this an apology?”

“Sorry,” Yellow said again, and meant it. “But the way you dance around and croon and pretend you’re a delicate, naïve, flower—“

“I don’t _pretend_ ,” Pink snapped.

“What about now?”

“I’m a _ngry_.”

“Really?” Yellow said. And laughed.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Pink barked.

But Yellow couldn’t stop. She bellowed, a genuine, hearty, laugh. She held her stomach and wheezed.

“Just because I have control over my anger, just because I don’t completely loose it and start shouting and cursing and---STOP LAUGHING!”

SMACK. Yellow gasped. She turned slowly, a hand on her burning cheek.

Pink had slapped her.

Yellow watched the fire in Pink’s eyes sputter out. She put a hand over her mouth.

“Yellow,” she breathed through her hand, “I’m sorry!”

Yellow slowly straightened up. She felt the welt growing beneath her hand. She turned to see Pink backing up slowly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

The fire that Yellow expected did not come. Instead, that flowering feeling, the soft warm glow, the feeling she knew but didn’t want to face, slowly burned instead.

Yellow let her hand drop and walked slowly toward her. Pink backed herself up against the wall

“Are you afraid of me?” Yellow asked, her voice low.

Pink didn’t answer, but her eyes were wide with fear. Yellow reached out and gently pulled Pink’s hand away from her mouth. She held it in her own.

“Are you afraid of me?” She repeated.

Pink’s mouth was slightly open. She closed it and slowly shook her head.

Yellow wordlessly pulled her into an embrace. Pink gasped, then sighed. She buried her face in Yellow’s shoulder, bunching up Yellow’s clothes in pink fistfuls. Yellow ran her fingers through her wild hair, gently stroking her scalp. Her other hand held her by her waist.

“I’m sorry,” Yellow said, her cheek resting against Pink’s soft hair. She heard Pink sob and felt the tears wet her shoulder.

“I thought you hated me,” she finally croaked.

Yellow felt her face flush in shame. “I thought I did,” she said honestly.

Pink sobbed violently. Yellow burned with more shame.

Yellow pressed her lips on top of Pink’s head, softly. A ghost of a kiss. She buried her nose in Pink’s hair and breathed in her flowery scent. Pink still sobbed.

“Shhh…” Yellow said, her hand rubbing her back, up and down. She kissed her cheek, just as softly as she did her head. Pink’s sobs slowed a little. Yellow’s lips moved down to her neck and she felt Pink’s breathe sharply against her shoulder.

She hummed there. Pink shivered, but she had stopped crying.

_It would be much easier if you just let yourself love her too._

“I love you,” Yellow whispered.

Pink raised her head and met Yellow’s lips with her own. They stayed there for a while, their lips moving in rhythm, a cadence they couldn’t hear but both felt.

Eventually they pulled apart. Yellow pecked Pink’s forehead.

“I’ve always loved you,” Pink whispered, her voice thick.

Yellow gazed at Pink’s tear-stained face. She cupped her head and wiped a tear trail with her thumb.

“I know.”

A fresh tear leaked out and she wiped that too. Pink turned to nuzzle Yellow’s hand, leaning into it as if it was the only thing in the world.

“I think,” Yellow said, softly, slowly, “I think I always loved you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction I've written on this site! I'm out of practice, so please tell me your thoughts! I'm of the opinion that their needs to be more Diamond fics, so I'm here to supply. Thanks for reading!


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